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Bizarre foods pose etiquette dilemma: To eat, or offend?

Gary Stoller, USA TODAY
10:41 a.m. EST November 6, 2012

Bizarre foods pose etiquette dilemma: To eat, or offend?
Many business travelers face a culinary and social dilemma in foreign countries. They don't want to insult their hosts or lose a business deal, but what's being served appears difficult to consume or downright disgusting.(Photo: Bob Riha, Jr. USA TODAY)

Irving, who worked in Thailand from 2001 to 2004 and still works for the manufacturer in California, says he developed a rule for his Thai hosts: "Don't tell me what it is until I have eaten it."

Many business travelers face a culinary and social dilemma in foreign countries. They don't want to insult their hosts or lose a business deal, but what's being served appears difficult to consume or downright disgusting.

Experts in business etiquette say there's no easy answer, and their suggestions about what to do are mixed. Many travelers don't have the stomach of Andrew Zimmern, who has put foods strange to Americans in vogue with his long-running Bizarre Foods television program on the Travel Channel.

"I have always tried everything put in front of me," says Zimmern, who has visited 32 countries to eat bizarre foods for more than 100 episodes during the past six years. "I would tell diners to be adventurous and remember that commercially processed supermarket hot dogs contain foods you don't want to know about — none of which are fresh or of good quality — and everyone loves them."

Bizarre but safe

Physicians who specialize in travel medicine say a plate of garlic crickets or another food considered bizarre by many Americans is OK to consume, if prepared in a sanitary fashion, but it may be wise to eat lightly.

Travel medicine expert Phyllis Kozarsky says foods abroad that Americans consider bizarre point out cultural differences and may not be more dangerous to one's health than foods commonly eaten.

"If something is cooked and steaming, most likely it's going to be pretty free of bacteria," says Kozarsky, a doctor and a professor of medicine and infectious diseases at Emory University.

Paul Sanders, a doctor who founded a Dallas-based company called The Travel Doctor/Corporate Health Management, says it may be wise to not eat too much of a bizarre food.

"If the host is eating a bizarre food, it doesn't mean you can tolerate it," says Sanders, whose company consults for companies with employees heading to developing countries. "If you eat something new, the intestines may not handle it well."

Queasy business travelers, he says, may want to get off the hook when faced with an unappetizing food by telling their hosts that their doctor advised them "not to overdo it."

Refusing can be insulting

Refusing an unappealing food, though, could have consequences.

"It is considered an insult not to at least taste every item set before you," says etiquette expert Syndi Seid. "This is no different than someone coming into my home and refusing to try something I prepared or specially ordered for them, just because of the way it looked or their past bias."

That was the concern of Tim Pigsley of Bradenton, Fla., who says he ate fish eyeballs like one eats a raw oyster at a business meal with Asian clients last year. He wasn't abroad, but he was "the only Caucasian" in a San Diego restaurant.

"I was told it is a symbol of honor to be served the eyeball from the whole fish, and I thought it would be an insult not to partake," says Pigsley, who works in the hotel investment business. "The eyeballs were salty and fishy, but not as bad as I thought. It was the thought that really had my gag reflex on notice."

Colby Reeves Jr., a construction industry executive in Knoxville, Tenn., says he forced down "a totally disgusting" meal at a business dinner hosted by a local Chinese businessman "to impress me, the American businessman," in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, about 15 years ago.

If he hadn't eaten "respectable amounts" of each seafood, Reeves says, it would have been "an embarrassment, if not worse to the Chinese businessman, and would have seriously weakened the relationship."

Michael Soon Lee, author of Cross-Cultural Selling for Dummies, says that an "outright refusal" to eat foods served "would be very insulting and could certainly kill a business deal."

A "white lie," he says, is an acceptable alternative. "If you don't want to be adventurous, you can simply fib and say you're allergic to whatever is being served," says Lee, who lives in Dublin, Calif. "Or simply say, 'My doctor has me on a strict diet, so I have to watch what I eat.' I've never seen this one questioned."

Frequent business traveler Dave Horowitz of Hamilton, N.J., has deployed another tactic to avoid eating something he didn't want. He told his hosts he was a vegetarian — though he isn't — when he refused to eat sweetbreads and foie gras in central France in 2004.

Seid suggests business travelers try unappealing food abroad if they aren't allergic to it, don't have medical or religious dietary restrictions to the food and know it's not poisonous. "I've tried rattlesnake meat, fried crickets and barbecued scorpions and have lived to tell it," she says. "They may not be my favorite food items, yet they were great experiences I enjoyed, and I welcome any opportunity to taste anything I know will not harm me."

Irving, the business traveler who spent years in Thailand, says that in most business situations abroad, the locals are understanding if an American refuses to eat something.

"If you have a good attitude, however, and are a little adventuresome with your choices, it is much easier to break the ice and relate to your hosts," he says. "Usually, the locals know that they are challenging you to a new taste, so relax and enjoy the fun."

He remembers several tasty "bizarre" meals. "One would never eat fish maw soup if it was known that it is fish intestines, but it is absolutely great," Irvine recalls. "Another favorite is fried morning glory — the same vine that grows around your mother's mailbox."

On a karaoke cruise in Laos last year, the appetizers were different sizes and flavors of crickets. "I found the garlic-flavored crickets yummy," Irving says.

Stefan Glück, a doctor and a professor at the University of Miami's medicine school, says the fried locusts he ate in southern Mexico two years ago were "really good, crunchy and spicy."

Frequent business traveler Marcelo Almeida of Coppell, Texas, loved the ant eggs in garlic sauce and the worms fried in garlic and oil in Mexico City in 2005.

"My mouth waters when I think of both dishes," says Almeida, who works in the language services business. "I would have them again and again."

Other side of the coin

Not every strange food eaten on a business trip, though, was a pleasant experience. "I can do without another course of fried rat in Jinghong, China, or the dog soup in Korea," Irving says. "Not to mention the overcooked camel kabobs in Bahrain."

Though Irving apparently has a very wide palate, he couldn't finish an unsettling business meal in Hanoi in April 2004. "We tried the special lobster sashimi, picking the translucent flesh from the tail when we noticed the lobster move across the table," he says. "When my business associate and I discovered that the lobster was still alive, we couldn't eat anymore. But our Japanese hosts gobbled up the delicacy."

Michael Gregurich, a sales director in the travel industry, has bad memories of snake eggs in Vietnam in 1999.

"I got quite sick afterward," says Gregurich of Manitowoc, Wis. "They were warm and so slimy with an almost rotten taste to them. I couldn't eat any eggs for about six months."

Management consultant Joyce Gioia of Austin says she was repulsed by durian, a favorite cooked fruit in Malaysia. "The smell has been compared to stinky socks, and it gives people really bad breath and gas," says Gioia. "Now, when anyone asks if I would like any durian, I politely decline."

Gioia's husband, Carl Berman Jr., is an oceanographer who ate Fugu, an expensive sushi delicacy, while attending a conference in Japan.

"You must be licensed to serve Fugu, because, if not prepared just right, it contains a deadly poison," Gioia says. "The sushi chef must have done it right, because Carl is still with us."